The students are aware of revenge by the CCP. After the September student movement of 1985, some students have been expelled and two students from the Beijing University have been arrested on the charge of "counter-revolutionary activities" for writing an article. There has not been any report of their release. This time, some officials have stated that students participating in the demonstrations will be affected in their job
Students in the frontline of the struggle IN DECEMBER 1986, a broad student movement spread in major cities in China. From the start, the movement put forward unequivocal demands for political democratization. Wall posters were put up and debates conducted in campuses, and, later on, thousands of students struck and took to the street, stating to society: the people will not remain silent, the students are going to the frontline of the struggle against the bureaucracy and for democracy. WEI WEN allocation after graduation. However, the students answer with mobilizations with clearer political objectives.
Even if the present struggle is temporarily repressed, it will rise with more momentum, since the social contradictions are aggravating.
The authorities fear most the involvement of the working class in the struggle. Due to the gravity of the economic situation and the serious price inflation, worker discontent is serious, and worker involvement in the struggle is possible. In fact, in the 150,000 mass demonstration in Shanghai, there were workers. Hence, the authorities tried desperately to separate the students from the rest of the population, and only those with student cards were allowed into the ranks to protest. At the same time, the authorities promptly announced that prices will stabilize in 1987.
On the other hand, in Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou, workers have been arrested, some on the charge of joining the student demonstration and overthrowing cars to cause turmoil, some on the charge of distributing leaflets and inciting students to take to the street. Since the participation of workers at present lacks organization, individual workers have been persecuted to blackmail workers from joining in the struggle.
Solidarity of the students, workers and citizens is the fear of the authorities, but it must also be the goal of the masses. Only with broad solidarity action can the bureaucracy be isolated and the anti-bureaucratic, democratic struggle succeed.
October Review, December 1986
From 1919 to 1949, the student movement played an active role in the struggle against imperialism and warlords. The May 4 Movement of 1919 was spurred by students. In the May 30 Movement of 1925, the students supported the struggle of the Shanghai textile workers and the student strike joined in with the general worker strike. After the September 18, 1931, invasion of Japan into China, the student movement grew in momentum and in 1935 the famous December 9 Movement was initiated by students in Beijing, demanding an end to the civil war and a national effort to fight the Japanese invasion. After World War II, under the reactionary rule of the Nationalist Party, the students were again in the vanguard. In May 1947, a general protest movement broke out against hunger, civil war and repression.
After the Communist Party (CCP) came to power, the initiative of the people was discouraged and required to follow the leadership of the Party. In 1956, on the repercussions of deStalinization in the Soviet Union and the Hungarian uprising, the CCP also called for the people to speak their thoughts. Students and intellectuals responded enthusiastically to the Hundred Flowers Bloom Movement, only to be attacked by being labelled "rightists". After this, students and intellectuals kept their silence. The student mobilization during the "Cultural Revolution" was initiated from above to serve the purpose of a factional power struggle, and was far from spontaneous. The milestone of the people's struggle for democracy is the April 5 Tiananmen Square riot in 1976 in which 100,000 workers, citizens and students for the first time spontaneously mobilized against the dictatorial regime.
At the end of 1978, a democratic movement unfolded in major cities. It first took the form of parades, wall posters on the Democracy Wall and rallies to discuss democracy. Soon, it developed into the form of the publication of unofficial journals so that discussion could be more profound and organization could be stronger. Of the more than 100 journals that were produced, about half were political journals. Their editors were mainly young workers, especially former red guards, during the Cultural Revolution. From January to March 1979, arrests were made on dissidents. Between this time and September 1980, the unofficial publications suffered intermittent repres sion, but they also made an important step forward. In September 1980, the National Association of Unofficial Publications of China was founded and it published an organ, Duty. Democratic movement organizes
The report of the First Congress of Unofficial Publications summarized the development of the democratic movement. It pointed out that in the initial period, the journal groups were atomized and immature, and failed to consciously take up the task of being the vanguard of the democratic movement and linking up with a mass democratic movement. The founding of the National Association to unify over 30 journals aimed to overcome the above organizational weakness.
15
International Viewpoint 9 February 1987
-,"äl
Politically, when Wei Jingsheng warned of Deng Xiaoping becoming a dictator because the people do not have the weapon of democracy, Wei was considered too radical in the circle of activists. Yet his arrest, and the later detention of Liu Qing, further exposed the countenance of the so-called "reformist faction", and helped some activists to discard illusions in the bureaucratic faction. The report of the first congress said that only by a broad democratic movement can ossified bureaucrats give up their power, and the confidence and enthusiasm of the masses be stimulated. "In fact, in some aspects, the conscious struggle of the masses against the bureaucrats has come into the category of the democratic movement. Comrades of the unofficial journals should grasp the mood and thoughts of the masses and heighten their understanding of the democratic movement."
Actually, inspired by the victory of the Polish workers in setting up the independent Solidarnosc, the Chinese activists not only promoted a united journal organization but also began to form the "Association to promote democracy and unification in China". This is an attempt by the core of the democratic movement to seek stricter organizational functioning to realize their program, which is for the practice of socialist democracy in China.
Hence, before the general repression of April 1981, the core group of the democratic movement, consisting of around 100 people, had developed quite a significant national organizational link, a unified organ, a program for socialist democracy, the consciousness of going into the worker and peasant masses to lead the masses into the democratic movement and even the preparatory work of organizing a political party.
Its rapid maturity was due on the 16 one hand to the inability of the Deng faction to solve China's social contradictions, the radicalization of the activists on seeing the repression of dissidents by the ruling faction, and the repercussions of the Polish trade union movement. On the other hand, these activists have accumulated political and organizational experience during the Cultural Revolution and applied it during the short interval of "liberalization" after Deng came to power. However, the general masses saw in Deng's policy rectification some of Mao Zedong's unpopular policies, and most people adopted a wait and see attitude. At the same time, the adverse consequences and new social contradictions arising out of Deng's policies were only starting to be seen. Hence, the repression of the democratic countenance among the more active layers. "The people should be master!"
The activists of the Beijing Spring democratic movement were mainly young workers, but the student movement also showed signs of revival during this period.
The unofficial publications produced by students were mainly literary journals in which the students voiced their discontent with social phenomena (such as bureaucratic privileges, abuse of power, serious inequality between the rich and the poor), and expressed their pursuit of an ideal. The most representative journal was Our Generation, jointly published by students of the Chinese department of 13 universities in China. It was banned after the first issue, but it already indicates the students' ability to link up with each other.
At the end of 1980, the students took the lead in participating in the election of county-level people's deputies to the people's congress.
Firstly, students from the Beijing University ran as candidates and expressed their political ideas during election campaigns. Heated debates took place, wall posters were put up, materials and journals were mimeographed and distributed, campaign groups were organized and campaign mass meetings were held. Campus atmosphere was electric. For example, a candidate's declaration "On the freedom of speech" caused a wide reaction, and the Beijing University students drafted a proposition concerning publication and collected signatures to press the government to safeguard the right of publication by citizens.
The struggle of the Hunan Teacher Training College students was even Training College students was even more militant. On 9 October, 1980, two thousand students spontaneously marched to the provincial government building in Changsha to denounce the school's illegal "nomination" of candidates. The students shouted slogans: "Down with bureaucratism". , "People's deputies should be elected by the people! The people should be master!" Starting on October 14, 87 students went on hunger strike and several thousand students of other institutes of higher studies joined in solidarity. On the 16th, the students went on a general strike, and workers also joined in a general strike. On the 24th, the students sent a delegation to Beijing to petition the central authorities, and on their way they linked up with students from other cities and a plan to set up a national independent student federation was discussed. The student struggle won a victory, and students were allowed to nominate their own candidates.
In October 1980, strikes also took place in Kaifeng University, Chungking Teacher Training College, Southwest Communications University and Sichuan Financial College, in protest of the rape of a girl student, the occupation of the campus buildings by the Provincial Party Committee or the inadequacy of school facilities respectively.
With the repression of the Beijing Spring democratic movement in April 1981, the student movement also came under repression. However, with the intensification of social contradictions under Deng's policies, the student movement began to revive from May 1984 to January 1985. Struggles on issues of student welfare and school administration took place in Nanjing University, Xiamen University, Beijing University, Beijing Teacher Training College and Beijing Law University. The demands of the Law University. Ine demands of the
International Viewpoint 9 February 1987
students were closely related to antibureaucratism.
On the September 18 anniversary in 1985, a wave of student demonstrations spread across China. In the Tiananmen Square, the slogan of the student demonstration was "Strong opposition to Japan's second economic invasion", "Down with the contemporary Li Hongzhang!" (Li was a Qing Dynasty official accused of treason to serve the interest of the imperialists). For a multiparty system
The existing economic policy and the privileges of cadres were the central issues of student protests. In Wuhan, Chengdu, Xian and Tianjin, university students carried out demonstrations or riots. Students from the Beijing University and Qinghua University formed a "command centre for all-China students to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the December 9 Movement" '. The command centre sent students to link up with universities in Xian, Wuhan, Changsha, Chengdu, Shanghai, Shenyang, Harbin, Dalian and others to prepare for a national demonstration against Japanese imperialism. The planned slogans were "Against bureaucratism and adverse trends", "Against treason to seek one's own wealth" • and "We want rice".
Due to an intense suppression by the authorities the Decamher 9
LETTER TO COMPATRIOTS Citizens, compatriots!
Have you long felt that our right to democracy and freedom is so very restricted and artificial? The feudal system in which democracy and freedom did not exist, and the Cultural Revolution in which democracy and freedom were trampled on, belong to the bygone days. However, the broad people still live under democracy and freedom in word only. We must ask: how many people's deputies are produced by means of the broad masses exercising their true rights? And can they really represent the wish of the people at critical moments? No! The answer we inevitably obtain is "NO!" In the eyes of most people, those deputies are merely lead types waiting for us to put a mark on!
We must also ask: are we free? The same answer. No. In all the major newspapers and radio broadcasts, there is simply nothing at all about the student movement in Shanghai and in other places. This alone serves to prove that the press is not free. The blockade of news hoodwinks the broad masses, so that the people cannot see the righteous demands of patriotic youths and the support of the people in all the places. This is a tragedy.
We believe that the people will not forever remain silent. After Hefei, Xian, Beijing, Kunming, Wuhan and Shenzhen, a dynamic student movement broke out in Shanghai on December 19. It end is to fight against bureaucratic repression and for democracy, and its means are legal parade and sit-in. Large numbers of students took to the street, and with their patriotism and the material and spiritual support of the citizens and masses they persisted until the early morning of December 20. Then, at this moment, large numbers of military police, in violation of the pledge of the municipal government, began to disperse the students by violence. Many students were badly beaten (including girls), and often, 3 or 4 policemen attacked one student. Dozens of patriotic students have been arrested. The people, on seeing the brutality, are enraged. Faced with violence and autocratic power, we will not give up. All universities go on strike and parade, and a struggle of greater scope unfolds.
Though we might temporarily come upon defeat, we shall not give up. We are convinced we are right. History will eventually affirm our student movement. The future and destiny of China should be grasped in the hands of the people. Full democracy and freedom will become the right of the people.
Let more people throw themselves into the dynamic movement for democracy and freedom! Victory surely belongs to us!! Viva the December 19 Movement!!
Tongji University Student (Note: This leaflet was distributed in the street on December 23).
the authorities, the December 9 demonstration did not materialize. In the latter half of December, there was also the protest of minority students from Tibet who demanded an end to nuclear tests in Tibet, democratic elections, an end to birth control and economic and political autonomy.
The student protests in December 1986 in major cities in China were a direct continuation of the 1985 student protests. From the very beginning, acute political demands against bureaucratic dictatorship and for political democratization were put forward. "Democracy" was the main slogan in all the demonstrations, and the concrete demands included freedom of the press, freedom of the person, genuine election of people's deputies to the people's congress and student participation in college administration.
Most notable is the discussion of and demand for a multi-party system and an independent student union proposed by wall posters on Beijing, Shanghai and Wahan campuses. These two demands had been made during the period of the Beijing Spring democratic movement, but this time they were more openly and directly proposed as a challenge to the "persistence of the leadership of the CCP" In addition, the students also actively propagandized democratic ideas to workers and citizens, and their slogan, "Against inflation" linked students with the workers.
In the December 20 demonstration of 150,000 people in Shanghai, more than half were not students. This is why the authorities took pains to prevent workers from joining the ranks of the demonstrating students, to separate workers from students and heavily penalize workers who played an active role in the protests.
The student demands are a sensitive reflection of social sentiments. The massive demonstrations of students reflect the acute political, economic and social contradictions in China today. Under Deng's rule, social polarization has aggravated, corruption, smuggling and cadres privileges are flagrant, and the masses can generally relate the economic trend with the political one-party dictatorship.
More people realize that the obstacle caused by the bureaucratic dictatorship must first be removed. The students in China, inspired by the people's overthrow of the dictator in the Philippines, the concession of the Nationalist government in Taiwan to allow a second party to exist, and the victory of the struggle of the French students, have become more courageous. Though in terms of the integrity of the program and the efficiency of organization the present student movement has not yet reached the level achieved by the core of the democratic movement of early 1981, the scope of mobilization is unprecedented.
It can be foreseen that if the student movement can further strengthen its organization (building independent student unions, setting up a national network) and consciously play the role of vanguard to fight for democracy - mobilize the workers and peasants and express their demands - then a mass democratic movement can unfold.
October Review, December 1986 17
International Viewpoint 9 February 1987
=.:
CHINA